


The Cure

by suitesamba



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sick!Harry, Some pining, Supporting Character Death, divorced H/G
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:41:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5603599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-five years after the Battle of Hogwarts, Albus Severus Potter is accepted as an apprentice by the Potions Guild and is assigned to his requested Master – Severus Snape. As they work together to design a better potion to help his father, whose health has been in a downward spiral since the war, Severus soon realises that what is wrong with Harry has nothing to do with a curse. A tale of fear, and courage, of old love, and new beginnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cure

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the recently completed Secret Snarry Exchange on LJ/IJ/DW for the Snape_Potter community to this prompt: In the final battle Harry was cursed and now has to constantly use potions to combat the damage from the curse. The potions are expensive, and contrary to popular belief, Harry is not that rich. After graduating, James Sirius or Albus Severus approaches Severus Snape (can be a disguised!Severus) to be taken as an apprentice so he can help his father, brewing his potions. Severus accepts, and can't help but feel curious about whyever a Potter would want to be a potions master, until he learns about Harry's condition and feels compelled to yet again save him.

ooOOOoo

Some days, days like today, Severus thinks the war will never really be over – not during his lifetime, anyway. Too many residual effects. Too many people whose lives have been undone. That it is the saviour of the Wizarding world who is suffering is not lost on him, nor that it is Harry Potter’s son, the one who carries his own name, who has led him here.

Too late – perhaps. Harry is past forty now, has been living with this curse, if that’s what this is, for more than twenty-five years. That Severus had no idea is a testament to the kind of man Potter turned out to be. Private, humble, the kind of man who eschews publicity, who does his job and comes home to his family and bleeds into the margins of Wizarding life. 

Severus doesn’t know it now, but he has a lot to learn about the adult Harry Potter.

He is sitting on the front steps of his cottage, head covered by his hands, bent over, with Albus kneeling behind him, arms wrapped tightly around his father’s shoulders while Severus casts one diagnostic spell after another. Harry has recognised him – he’s not too far gone yet, though Albus says he can spend hours in a dark room, in a foetal position, until the potions take effect and send him into only semi-restful slumber. Harry seems resigned to his presence. Severus knows he has put the pieces together – has seen Albus’ subterfuge – knows that the Potions master with whom his son is apprenticing is not an Irish wizard named Gavin Boyle but is, in reality, Severus Snape, a man who shares a past with Harry that very few know or understand. Al has been honest with Severus – Severus already knows that his only motivation in becoming a Potions master himself is to help end his father’s pain. What it must have cost him, Severus thinks, to appeal to the Potions Guild to be assigned to Severus, knowing (but not _really_ knowing) the aborted history of Harry and Severus’ past. And while at first he assumed the boy used his name to curry favour, to get special treatment, he soon learns what it cost the boy to use every tool at his disposal to gain this apprenticeship.

The boy is already apprenticed to him when Severus learns, through an accidental encounter with Minerva McGonagall in Diagon Alley, that Albus Potter, Gryffindor Seeker for five years, had been scouted by most of the professional Quidditch teams and offered a starting position with the league champion Wasps.

Yet here is he, toiling under Severus’ demanding tutelage, sleeping on a narrow camp bed in a room off the lab, reading ancient tomes long after the last flame is extinguished under the row of simmering pewter cauldrons.

Severus, for his part, has been intrigued by Harry’s story since Albus Severus Potter’s application was delivered by owl to his residence in Calais. When he finally had the boy in front of him, the story took form. Years of migraine-like symptoms, beginning just months after the Final Battle and Voldemort’s last defeat. Debilitating. Nothing physiologically amiss, no curse ever identified. He worked through it, learned relaxation techniques and breathing exercises, took Muggle pain killers, took pain relief and muscle relaxant potions, practiced Yoga, meditated. Fighting the pain was easier when his marriage was intact and the children lived at home, and he was a good father, active, engaged. When Lily left for Hogwarts, and his marriage, adrift for years, finally ended with Ginny returning to her parents’ home to care for her ailing mother, Harry’s condition began to degrade even further.

It is difficult to surprise Severus, but he is surprised by Harry Potter.

Harry has stayed largely out of the public eye over the years, and Severus, when he’s taken time to consider it, had always admired this about the man. Had he given it much consideration, he’d surely have thought that Harry was the head of a tight family unit, enmeshed with the larger Weasley clan. He’d have money to spare with the Black fortune, not to mention whatever Lily and James had left him, and the family would be comfortable and close. He’d have imagined him as robust and healthy, athletic like his father, perhaps as kind as his mother had been. He had known Harry Potter briefly, just after the war, for a few months, anyway. 

But the boy had left after a time and Severus had had a new life to forge himself.

The Harry Potter he is standing before now is disheveled, wiry, unkempt. The cottage is not small, but it has seen better days and needs a coat of paint and a good cleaning. A brown and white crup, scrappy and protective, has been put up by Albus, and it barks and whines from a closed room in the back of the cottage. There is an air of neglect about the home, and about Harry himself, that Severus would never have expected from the wizard who defeated Voldemort. The Chosen One. The Boy Who Lived Again.

Albus is holding tightly onto his father to keep him upright and still as Severus completes his scans. He looks at Severus hopefully, and there is such sadness in his eyes, and such love, that Severus is looking backward in time through Al’s green eyes, into Harry’s, into Lily’s.

“He’s dehydrated,” Severus says. His voice has never recovered fully from the snake’s attack, and is soft and strained. Al nods, lips pursed, clearly worried. He adjusts his grip on his father and looks up at Snape, waiting. 

“His temperature is elevated, pulse too rapid, blood pressure dangerously high.” Snape pockets his wand and crouches down in front of Harry, lowers his voice even further. “I can detect no vestiges of Dark Magic.”

It is clear by Albus’ expression that he’d have much preferred a different diagnosis.

“We should take him to St. Mungo’s.”

Harry, still holding his head, shakes it. 

“No. Please, no. They can’t do anything for me.”

It is the first time Severus has heard him speak. His eyes had registered Severus when Al side-along Apparated him here five minutes ago, and he’d stared at him in shock, then resigned, had dropped his head into his hands as Al approached him. 

“He’s right,” Al agrees. “They can’t. They just make it worse with the experimental potions. They treat him like a guinea pig.” He loosens his grip on his father’s shoulders. “Dad, let me take you inside. Master Snape brought something for you to try – something we’ve been working on together.”

_Working on together for you_ is left unsaid.

It is a pain-relieving potion made to target the head and neck – nothing ground-breaking, but a way to channel the active ingredients directly to the affected areas. 

Al half-carries Harry into the front room and settles him on a worn sofa. Severus follows behind, taking in the small room as he goes. It’s comfortable, homey, with old throws and photos of family and friends. Two brooms lean against the wall by the door, and a basket with old flannel shirts inside it serves as a bed for the crup. While the room is clean enough, and comfortable, it carries an air of neglect, and the furnishings look second-hand, long past their prime. 

“Fetch any medications he’s been taking – potions, pills, whatever you can find. Then pack an overnight bag for him – toiletries, pajamas, dressing gown.”

Severus kneels beside the sofa and rests a cool hand on the feverish forehead.

Albus has paused in the doorway and is watching Severus, frowning. “We can’t take him to St. Mungo’s,” he says, stepping back into the room. “It just makes everything worse.”

“I don’t doubt that,” mutters Severus. He sighs. “We’re not going to St. Mungo’s – we’re taking your father back with us.” 

And it only makes sense, after all. He’ll need to assess – blood tests, at the very least – and to brew. Reduce the fever, lower the blood pressure – and quickly, get fluids into him. All this before trying to sort through the other symptoms and get to the heart of the matter.

He doesn’t know how close he is to the answer with that last thought, and will not for some time.

_ooOOOoo_

Al has been honest with Severus, but only to a point.

Two hours after Harry Potter’s Patronus appeared in Severus’ laboratory, bidding Albus to come to his father’s aid, Harry is sleeping on Albus’ camp bed, comfortable, for the moment at least, under the effects of the new pain potion Severus and Albus have devised. He’s hydrated, his blood pressure is nearly in the safe zone again, and they’re watching the fever closely. At Severus’ request, Albus had laid out the medications gathered from the cottage on the lab table. It is a paltry collection of sub-standard category three and four pain potions and Muggle analgesics, along with some fairly alarming Muggle narcotic sleep aids and muscle relaxants – most of them expired.

“It’s no wonder he’s in the shape he’s in,” Severus says as he quickly categorises the potions, holding each up to the light to assess it, apparently not trusting the labels. He looks hard at Albus, who is sitting, white-faced, on a lab stool across the table. “Mr. Potter – explain.”

Albus bites his lip in a gesture so reminiscent of his father that Severus, who up until this moment has had no trouble distinguishing one from the other despite their resemblance, is immediately swept back twenty-five years to those quiet weeks after the war when Harry frequented his doorstep.

“Go on.” His voice may be faint, but it is firm and brooks no argument.

“He can’t afford quality potions from St. Mungo’s,” Albus says. He is both defiant and resigned. “His… illness… limited him at work – at the Ministry. Mum – well, Mum used to bring in most of the money, but she’s taking care of Granny now, and doesn’t have much to spare. Jamie does what he can, but he’s only been at the Ministry a year now and I know Dad uses most of what he sends for Lily’s expenses. I used to brew with him before I started with you, but he found a cheaper source for potions while I’m away.”

Severus stares, unbelieving, at his apprentice. 

“I was given to believe he inherited a fortune from his godfather,” he says, trying to keep his voice level, non-accusatory.

Albus blushes and looks away. “You’d probably better ask him yourself about that,” he says. He squares his shoulders and looks back at Severus. “We didn’t want, sir,” he says, pride filling out his voice. “We had everything we wanted – and needed. But he’s been sick so long – the expenses add up. Mum does help – really. She comes and stocks the refrigerator whenever she can, helps Dad with the housework when he can’t get around very well.”

“And his friends? Ronald Weasley? Hermione Granger? The Longbottom boy?”

Severus can’t interpret the look Albus gives him. Defensive, he thinks. 

“Neville helps with ingredients whenever he can. As for Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione – that’s a really touchy subject.” 

“Enlighten me.” He puts down the sub-par potion he was studying and sighs.

He is surprised when the boy holds his ground. “I think you should ask Dad,” he says. “It’s not something I’m supposed to know, and I’m going to be in enough trouble already since I lied to him about apprenticing with you.”

Severus doesn’t press further – Albus has had a hard day already and Severus needs some quiet time to think. He sends Albus back to his father’s cottage to take care of the crup and to clean up a bit, and gives him a list of ingredients to pick up at Diagon Alley, and a separate list to take to Longbottom at Hogwarts – items that are much more effective fresh than dried. 

When Albus is gone, Severus opens a narrow drawer in his correspondence desk and removes a delicate silver blade. He holds it in a flame for a minute, then selects a small glass vial and picks up a white handkerchief and enters the room where Harry Potter is sleeping.

He pulls up a small stool beside the bed and studies the pale, gaunt face. The man’s situation is a puzzle he can’t decipher. He had the world at his feet, the fortune of his godfather’s pureblood family to ride on the rest of his life. As he bares Harry’s arm and pierces the skin with the delicate knife, collecting the blood in the vial then pressing the handkerchief into the crook of his arm to stop the bleeding, he wonders at the vagaries of time, thankful that his life these past years has been private and productive, that he has had good health despite the disfiguring scars on his neck, and that the Ministry and the Wizarding public have all but forgotten him.

He imagines Potter did not have such an easy time escaping fame.

By the time Albus returns with the requested ingredients, Severus has discovered that Potter is anemic, has several vitamin deficiencies, but has no other evident chronic conditions or ailments. He wonders if his pain is psychosomatic, but only academically.

He doesn’t need the blood tests, or the back-alley owl order potions Potter has been taking, to suspect what really ails Harry Potter.

He recalls all too well – cannot forget, can never forget – the moment Albus Dumbledore told him why Harry Potter must die.

Severus had assumed that “Horcrux” would become a common word following Voldemort’s defeat, but Potter simply hadn’t mentioned them. Had certainly never mentioned that he’d been one himself for nearly seventeen years. It only stood to reason, in the absence of any physical evidence of curses, illness or disease, that the destruction of the Horcrux was the root of the problem.

And it was impossible that Harry – and likely his wife and friends as well – didn’t fully realise this.

Severus drills Albus on the properties of each ingredient as they prepare them for the needed potions. Albus is quick and deft, a natural with the fragrant herbs from the Hogwarts greenhouses, and his knowledge of chemistry is more than adequate for the job. They discuss the formula and decide on adjustments to the altered recipe to counter some of the expected side-effects such as drowsiness and nausea. 

“I appreciate this, Master Snape. He hasn’t had a quality potion in a couple years. Mum borrowed money from Uncle Charlie and purchased potions directly from St. Mungo’s. They work for a while, but he needs a stronger and stronger dose, more than is safe.” He continues working, mincing and dicing and stirring the base, as Severus pages through the index of a particularly dense volume from his personal library. 

Severus nods to acknowledge him.

He has precious little information about Horcruxes and he needs to speak with Harry. If the man has kept this secret all these years, it would not do to spill it out in front of his son. If he’s kept it a secret, he has his reasons for doing so.

Severus understands this. The memory of the Dark Mark that has faded to nothingness on his forearm is hard enough to bear; how must it be to go through life as the former vessel of the Dark Lord’s very soul?

He sends Albus back home again to care for the crup and to sleep there, as his own bed is being used by his father. Severus prepares toast and broth for Harry, then wakes him and eases him up to rest against the wall behind the bed. He spoon-feeds Harry the weak broth, allows him to eat as slowly as he likes, and doesn’t ask questions. The light is low in the small room. It is a plain room, with simple furnishings – a bed, a writing desk, a straight-backed chair, a dresser, a bedside table. 

He doses Harry with another pain potion, this one more mild than the last, then plumps two pillows and arranges them behind his back. Harry doesn’t look him in the eye, preferring to keep his eyes cast downward, expression closed. If anything, Severus would say he looks sad. 

“You saw my memories. You know Albus told me about the final Horcrux.”

He speaks casually as he checks Harry’s temperature, and Harry stiffens beneath him.

“Who else knows? I assume none of your healers? St. Mungo’s?”

Harry gives a choked sort of laugh, then winces and closes his eyes tightly.

“Does Albus know, Harry? How can anyone help you if they have no idea what you’re up against?”

He is patient and allows time for Harry to answer, stacking empty bowls and vials on the dresser and pouring a glass of water for Harry to sip.

“Why did you take him on, Snape? What has he told you?”

He hasn’t answered the question that Severus asked, but he’s asked valid questions of his own. Snape is glad he’s able to engage, at least, and honours him with an answer.

“He applied through the usual process and was chosen as a finalist by the Guild. As he requested me, and I take on apprentices from time to time, I reviewed his candidacy and was intrigued with his potential.”

Harry seems to consider his answer. Severus meets his gaze, then Harry nods, the barest movement of his head on the pillows. 

“Potter – you must know after all this time.” He lowers his voice instinctively, though no one else is in the house, much less the little room. “There is no detectable curse – no physiological explanation for the pain. The pain must be related to the Horcrux.”

Severus is both intrigued and horrified by this knowledge. He is a scientist and a wizard, a Potions master and inventor. He wants to know more, everything there is to know about how a Horcrux affects a human body, and it is entirely possible that the only human subject alive is lying in this bed in the person of Harry Potter. 

Neither Harry nor Severus seems awkward at the sudden intersection of lives lived very much apart this past quarter century. Harry is clearly in pain; Severus is clearly sympathetic to his situation and his needs. The animosity of Severus’ youth and Harry’s childhood has melted away with war and recovery, and Severus sees now that he is the one – the only one – who may be able to help Harry Potter now.

It is a weighty responsibility, and he has more than an academic interest in the outcome.

“You haven’t told me who else knows,” Severus says as he administers another dose of the tincture that will help lower the blood pressure by ridding the body of extra fluid. Harry doesn’t even pull a face, doesn’t grimace at the bitter taste, just swallows it down and closes his eyes.

“Ron and Hermione – they’ve always known.”

“Your ex-wife? Your children? Albus, at least?”

Harry shakes his head. 

“Albus has given up a starting position with the Wasps to become my apprentice and devote his life to finding something that will ease your pain.”

“I begged him to take the position. Ordered him.” Harry’s voice holds a mix of anger and pride. “He’s just like his mum.”

Severus lets out a bark of laughter and Harry actually smiles.

They watch each other another long moment, then Harry sighs and turns his head slowly away to face the wall beside the bed. Severus sees that he is regulating his breathing carefully, in through his nose, out through his mouth, long, even breaths that make his thin chest rise and fall noticeably.

Severus has a hundred questions, but they will wait. He’ll weather this night out here, sleeping on the sofa, administering potions, hoping that Harry gets a few hours of peaceful slumber. When Albus returns in the morning, he can take over care while Severus makes a few strategic visits. 

He settles on the sofa some time later, allowing his mind to return to the last time he saw Harry Potter. He is a structured man, with a disciplined mind, and has stored the events carefully away. He knows now that he should have seen the signs then – that he did, indeed, see them, and not recognise them. He cannot feel guilty about it. He hardly knew the boy then, despite what they did, and he’s more a stranger now than ever.

^^^^^

Six months after the Battle of Hogwarts that claimed his voice and nearly claimed his life, Snape is living again at Spinner’s End, taking stock of his life and making plans, now that his war reparations have been paid by an unnamed benefactor – not too difficult to sort out that Lucius wanted one more thing to hold over his head. It is a future he hadn’t expected to have. The boy has owled him more than once, asking after his health, requesting a visit. He’s replied, politely, that he is recovering and is moving on. Visits with former students, even Saviours of the Wizarding world, aren’t possible, necessary, or desired.

He has a poultice on his neck, wrapped in a warm scarf, and is packing books into sturdy boxes, when Harry Potter shows up, unannounced, at his front door.

The idiot child has researched property records in a Muggle library to find him, he’ll give him credit for that, at least. He stands on the doorstep, bundled up against the wind, and looks at Severus through smaller, less round spectacles.

“Got the right place, then,” he says with a tentative smile. He shivers in the cold like a foundling, and Severus has a sudden picture of the baby shivering on Petunia Dursley’s doorstep on a cold, late autumn night. 

Severus steps back and holds the door open wordlessly, and the boy comes in, then turns to face him as he closes the door and stands, arms crossed, waiting.

“I brought back your memories.” The words spill out quickly as Potter looks around the sitting room. “You’re leaving.”

One phrase follows the other seamlessly, though they are two disparate thoughts. 

“Thank you. And yes.”

Potter looks up at him sharply, no doubt startled at the quality of his voice. His mouth drops open, then he closes it and blinks several times. He doesn’t look at Severus as he puts his hand in his pocket and extracts a shimmering crystal vial. He holds it out to Severus and Severus reaches for it as Potter presses it into his hand.

It is a beautiful antique vial, heavy and solid. Severus recognises the quality of it as he accepts its weight.

Potter’s fingers linger, as if reluctant to give up the treasure.

“Thank you,” the boy murmurs as he steps back and away from Severus again. “I wish I’d known more – earlier, I mean. I understand – I think I understand, anyway.” He shrugs, hands in his pockets once more, and smiles. “It’s over, though. Water under the bridge. Couldn’t have done it without you – without those.” He nods at Severus’ clasped hand.

“Aren’t you back at Hogwarts? Does the headmistress know where you are?”

It’s not the first thought Severus has, but it’s the first thing he thinks to actually say out loud.

Potter shakes his head. 

“I’m at the Ministry – Auror training. Giving it a go, anyway. Hermione went back, but Ron and I decided to get on with our lives.”

He looks around the small room again, taking in the worn furniture, the crates of books. “So…” He swallows. “You’re getting on with your life too, I take it.”

“I am. I am sure it is not news to you that my war reparations have been paid, and I am being allowed to go on with my life as I wish.”

Potter looks down. “Yeah. I heard.” He shuffles uncomfortably. “Well, I’m glad I caught you. I’d best be going now.”

Severus very much wants to shuffle him out of the house and return to his packing, but he is overcome with an odd sort of pity for the boy. He’s not much a boy anymore, not really, with the scruff on his cheeks and chin, the weary look in his eyes. Severus wonders about that and, as he clutches the vial of memories, he thinks about what the boy must have seen in them, remembers his own horror at learning Albus had raised him like a lamb for the slaughter, thinking then that his sacrifices were for naught. That he’d only let Lily down – again.

He should have known better.

But making an overture toward Harry Potter is not something he can easily do. He’s ignored most of the owls the young man has sent to date, polite and innocuous as each has been. Fortunately, Harry feels his hesitation and steps in before the figurative door closes further.

“They’re rebuilding the dungeons with the money,” he says. 

Severus takes notice of that. He’d heard how bad the damage was to that particular part of the castle, and had assumed, given its occupants, that it would not be a high priority. 

“They’ve earmarked all of it,” Potter continues, his voice trailing off as if he doesn’t quite know what to say next.

“All of it?” he rasps. The reparations demanded of him to release him from lifetime servitude to the Wizarding public through the Ministry of Magic were exorbitant. “That money could rebuild the dungeons twice – three times.”

“The Potions laboratory and classrooms will be state-of-the-art. And there’ll be enough left to attract a qualified Potions Master and to fund scholarships for students who want to become masters themselves.”

“That’s… good.” The words are inadequate, but he doesn’t know what else to say. A thought strikes him. “You – Potter. Did they come to you? Did they ask you how to spend the money?”

Potter blushes and looks down. “I probably don’t have as much influence as you think,” he says. “But yeah – Kingsley and I talked about it. I told him what I thought.” He looks up and meets Severus’ eyes. “I told him it was a ridiculous amount of money – that it was obvious they were trying to keep you on the hook the rest of your life.”

“They do not understand Slytherins,” Severus says with a wry smile. “Slytherins take care of their own.”

_For a price._

“Right.” The boy is blushing and Severus cannot fathom why. “Well, they understand that now, anyway,” Harry says. He looks around the room again and sighs. “Well, I guess I should go. I just wanted to make sure you were getting along all right, and to give you back the memories.”

Severus nods. “I’m getting along fine.” He wishes his voice was stronger, that it had healed as well as the rest of him had. 

But as Harry turns to go, Severus is suddenly struck by his aloneness, by what it must have cost him to track him down in this godforsaken, dirty hovel. A small show of compassion, from one mal-used hero to another, would not be too much.

“Potter – would you like a drink?”

Harry’s face registers his surprise, but he gives a quick nod and a very small smile.

They spend an hour together in Severus’ small sitting room, and Harry doesn’t have any idea how to drink scotch, and Severus watches him over the rim of his glass and thinks he looks too tired, and too old, for a young man of eighteen. 

He has an idea, as he bids Harry farewell and the young man turns and Apparates with a soft crack that lifts the dust on the bookshelves, that the young man had quite a bit more to say.

It will wait, Severus tells himself.

Harry is back a week later. Checking in on him, he says. Wondering how the packing is going. Severus sighs and brings out the scotch again, and they pass another hour together, and Harry stands and wanders about the room, examining the books that remain on the shelves, an old photograph on the mantel, a silver instrument that most certainly used to sit on the shelf in the headmaster’s office. 

A week later, they talk about Albus Dumbledore. And Harry tells him about that time in between, in King’s Cross Station, what Albus said when Harry asked him if it was real. And Severus asks him about that last duel in the Great Hall, the one he has heard so much about, and Harry blushes and tells Severus about Remus and how he admonished him, told him Expelliarmus was his signature spell.

The next week, Harry asks him about Lily. About the memories, and what she was like, and what her voice sounded like, what she excelled in at school, and whether she, too, played Quidditch. What her wand was made of, and how long it was, and what his grandparents’ names were and how they died.

And Severus finds himself talking, and they finish the bottle of scotch and start on another, and then he is sobbing, and Harry Potter is kneeling at his feet, telling him it’s alright to cry.

They’re both drunk, but Severus remembers the kiss that started it all. Green eyes large behind the glasses, hands cupping his face, sweet young breath that is not Lily’s, not at all. They are on the sofa, and Harry is beneath him, and it is good, and right – perfect, exquisite. He hasn’t felt this good in years, _nothing_ has. Harry is gasping and panting, moaning, pushing up against him, primal, needy. He doesn’t remember undressing, but he is naked and undone, undone by the ardor, by the body beneath him that seems to need this, to _want_ this, as much as he does himself.

He remembers grasping the boy’s cock, fisting it with his own, sliding against it as he lets his body take over, as the boy shudders and tenses, comes with a muted scream.

He remembers wanting to fuck the boy. 

Merlin, how many times has he imagined it over the years, what was nearly on offer, what he could have had.

He comes in pulses, spurting on the boy’s chest, falling asleep with the warm weight of another in the circle of his arms.

But Harry is gone when he awakes. Severus, in the cruel light of morning, thinks he’ll never see the boy again. 

He is wrong. The boy appears a week later and hands him another vial, similar to the first.

“Mine and Hermione’s,” he says as he presses the memories into Severus’ palm. “So you have two perspectives.” He is still on the doorstep and he takes a step backward. “I have to leave now. I… thank you. Really. Thank you.”

And like that he is gone and Severus is blessedly relieved, and strangely empty.

The vial contains memories of Harry’s final duel with the Dark Lord. No matter that Harry had described it to him, Severus had still wanted to know more. And somehow, Harry had understood.

^^^^^

And Severus, a practical man, had gone on with his life and paid very little attention to the Wizarding world as a whole, though he’d of course heard that Harry Potter had named a son after him and Albus, and had got roaring drunk the night that particular bit of news reached him. And he’d heard that the famous Weasley-Potter marriage had stalled out soon after the youngest Potter left for Hogwarts, just as his ascent up the ranks of the MLE had stalled early in his career, leaving him tied to a largely paper-pushing desk job.

And now, here, in Severus Snape’s potions lab, Potter sleeps through the night, better than Severus could ever have hoped given his condition when he and Al reached him the day before. His blood pressure, while slightly high, is no longer spiking. The fever has broken and his forehead is no longer furrowed in pain. Severus hears him moving around before the sun rises and shows him to the small loo.

Al is back at seven thirty and Severus leaves him with instructions to keep his father hydrated and on the potions regimen they’d devised for him the day before. 

He seldom frequents Diagon Alley, and when he does, he favours off-hours. When he walks into Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes at nine o’clock, he moves immediately to the counter where a woman is busy sorting multicoloured dung bombs.

She looks up as he approaches, and she must recognise him, as she has that look on her face: the look those who knew him before have as they struggle with how to address him.

“I’m looking for Ronald Weasley,” he says, not giving her a chance to try out “Professor” or “Headmaster” and certainly not “Mister.” “Is he available?”

His request seems to amuse her.

“Ron?” She grins, as if his request is a personal gift. “Oh – absolutely. He’ll be _delighted_ to see you again, sir.” The woman, whom he does not recognise although, given her age, she must have been one of his students, disappears through a curtained doorway.

Ron Weasley is taller and less gangly than Severus remembers him. Severus files away the image of the look on his face as he realises who is waiting for him. He’ll use it to conjure a Patronus in a pinch. Weasley recovers fairly quickly, nodding at him politely as he asks “How can I help you, sir?”

Five minutes later, he is sitting in front of a desk in a small office tucked away in a back corner of the shop. He has a mug of tea and a small plate of biscuits and Weasley, once it is clear to him why Severus is here, erects an elaborate privacy spell that impresses even Severus.

“Got good at these that year on the run,” he says with a shrug, putting down his wand and leaning back in his chair, as if that year on the run wasn’t a quarter century gone.

When Severus has explained why he is here, and what he wants, Weasley opens up. He has specific questions and Weasley is forthcoming with answers, so in a short time he learns that Hermione Granger has long theorised that the Horcrux Potter carried with him for so long is the root of his problems. She’s done an exhausting amount of research, to no avail – there are no precedents for what Harry has experienced. Weasley admits to taking Muggle medications from his in-laws’ dental office for Harry to try, an act that nearly led to his wife leaving him. Since that time, four years ago, Harry will accept no help from him, not in brewing potions, or procuring ingredients. And he is adamant that no one know anything about the Horcruxes. He has enough stigma, he says, enough notoriety, without the world knowing he carried a piece of Voldemort’s soul around in his head until he was nearly eighteen. It is clear to Severus that Ron agrees with Harry on this point.

Hermione Granger, Weasley reveals, would have become an Unspeakable in a heartbeat if not for this secret she keeps about Harry Potter. The oath each Unspeakable takes commits them to investigating the magical unknowns, the mysteries unsolved, the knowledge yet un-gained. She dreaded the thought of Harry as the subject of any experimentation. He’d done enough, sacrificed enough, suffered enough, already. 

“I can’t imagine what it’s like for him,” Weasley says with a shudder. “We carried the locket Horcrux around with us for months. It sucked the joy right out of us – the world was a different place when it was my turn to carry the damn thing.” He shudders, even now, all these years later, from the mere memory of the thing. 

Severus leans in, intrigued more than he should be. Weasley may or may not suspect that Severus was witness to that horrible scene, hidden in the darkness. What had possessed Potter to leave the locket around his neck when he went into the pond after the sword? He had a grudging admiration for Weasley, for his strength of character to be able to destroy the thing in the end, even with Potter urging him on.

“But once you destroyed it? Did the effects linger?”

Weasley looks thoughtful. He shakes his head slowly. “No – everything was better once it was gone. Only – ” He looks at Severus and there is a startled bit of realisation behind his eyes. “I suppose it was easier to lose track of things after that – at least for a while. I mean…” He pauses, trying to sort it out mentally before he speaks again. “I mean, easier to let the negative take hold. Harder to keep a positive outlook.” He shrugs. “Might have been the cold too, or hunger, or crazy arse ideas like breaking into Gringotts and leaving atop a pensioner dragon.”

It’s hard to say if he’s on to something – something about the residual effects of a Horcrux they’d carried with them for three and a half months – or if it’s merely a coincidence and they’re grabbing at straws. “I think you need to talk with my sister – she’s the one who lived with him all these years. And she wants to help him – she just… well, she just can’t live with him anymore. Not like this, anyway.”

He looks truly pained by this reality, and Severus allows himself to be shown through the Floo to the Weasley home in Ottery St. Catchpole.

Ronald has Floo-called first, so they’re expecting him when he steps out of the fireplace and brushes the soot off his shoulders. Arthur is there, and Ginevra, and Arthur steps forward and shakes Severus’ hand, almost fondly.

He’s aged since Severus last saw him, but that was a number of years ago. He’s not old, not by Wizarding standards, at least, but is even more careworn than he seemed in the Order of the Phoenix days. Ginevra, the former Mrs. Potter, resembles her mother more than she did, which seems only natural as she’s in her mid-40s now. She is confident as she greets him – using his correct title, Master Snape, though she, if not her former husband, knows that Albus Severus is apprenticing with him, and why he’s doing so. 

“I didn’t expect we’d be at this point so soon,” she says, worry evident in her eyes. “Has Harry taken a turn for the worse?”

Molly is nowhere to be seen, but Severus understands that she is ailing and Ginny has moved back home to help her father care for her. 

“He had a bad attack yesterday and sent his Patronus to Albus while we were working. Albus seemed quite concerned and I offered to accompany him home. We brought Mr. Potter back to the laboratory. Al’s there with him now. He had a moderately restful night.”

She nods gives her father a significant look. He squeezes her shoulder. “I’ll get back to your mum, then, while you two talk,” he says. He reaches out to Severus again and takes his hand. “And thank you, Severus. For taking on Al and for helping Harry. He’s still like a son to us – despite…” He falters, looks at his daughter. “Well, despite everything.” He shakes Severus’ hand rather vigourously, then disappears up the stairs.

They sit at the worn kitchen table, with more tea and more biscuits, and Severus gets right to the point. He’s focused on a line of thought enforced by his visit with Ron, and he asks Ginevra to describe for him when Harry was at his best and at his worst. To look for patterns and relate them to him. 

Him, an outsider. An observer looking in the window.

What she tells him is exactly what he expects to hear. The pain is bearable, even forgettable at times, when the children are home, when family is near, when chaos abounds. When there are pleasant distractions, and sunshine, and hope. The pain is at its worst when Harry is alone for long periods of time, when the children are away, when the weather turns cold and windy, when there are disagreements, or tragedies, or stresses from family or work. 

She pauses here, turning something over in her mind and studying him as if unsure how – or if – to proceed. “We’ve had financial problems from the beginning,” she confides. “We always expected Harry would be able to provide well for us as an Auror, but the illness prevented him from going anywhere in the department. He’s had a dead-end desk job for years and he’s good at it, but it doesn’t give him a bit of satisfaction. By the time Lily was three or four, it was obvious he’d gone as far as he could and, by then, there wasn’t anything left to fall back on.” She doesn’t seem bitter – not exactly – just sad and weary.

He’ll only have this one chance to ask, and he has no real reservations about doing so. He’s curious, and she doesn’t have to tell him. She can always say no, or tell him to mind his own business.

“I was under the impression that Harry inherited his godfather’s estate,” he says, trying to keep his voice neutral.

Ginny looks at him shrewdly. “You don’t know Harry very well, do you?” She looks like she might cry, and what Severus sees is not a woman who’s fallen out of love with her spouse, but one who very much loves him and wishes things would have worked out differently. She takes a fortifying drink of tea. “He gave it away. Much of it bit by bit – there was always someone who needed it more, and we were young and didn’t really need anything back then. We put some of it away and purchased the cottage with that, and used the rest while it lasted to help with the medical expenses.” She stares at her hands wrapped around the tea mug. “I don’t know how any of this is relevant – only that Harry’s health got worse with all the worry.”

Foolish boy, Severus thinks. He remembers a short time in his life when he was as idealistic. It is a time he doesn’t like to recall, when actions seemed to have no consequences. 

“One more thing,” he asks as Ginny returns to her tea and he studies his own empty mug. He’s been wondering about this and thinks he knows the answer, despite what Harry claims. “Does Albus know about the Horcruxes?”

His damaged voice doesn’t permit shouting, but he lowers his voice even more when he utters the word.

She looks up sharply, narrows her eyes at him. They stare at each other and he doesn’t back down. Finally, she closes her eyes and sighs.

“No,” she says. “I wanted to tell him – so he understood how hopeless this was. He was offered a position with the Wimbourne Wasps – I wanted him to take it. We all did. But he turned it down, insisting that he wanted to be a Potions master and his dad couldn’t wait for him to fly about on a broom for five years.”

“Thank you,” Severus murmurs. He stands. “Harry has a good team behind him, and his son’s determination might be the tipping point. It may not be as hopeless as you believe.”

She smiles, but the smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Severus thinks that for Ginny Weasley Potter, it is already too late.

He returns to the lab to find Albus reading at the desk and Harry fast asleep.

“Whatever you’re doing is working,” Al says, standing to address Severus, as he always does when Severus enters. A respectful gesture, and one Severus does not discourage, not in this time Albus will spend as his apprentice. “He never sleeps like this.”

“I’ve not altered the formulas beyond what we devised together for the targeted delivery,” Severus says. He walks to the doorway of the connecting room and watches Harry sleep. “Fresh ingredients, better brewing techniques, certainly. And we’re treating the anemia and hypertension and keeping him well-hydrated. He was likely not even aware of the other conditions before our intervention.”

“Well, it’s working,” Albus says, smiling at Severus gratefully. 

“For now, anyway,” mutters Severus. He sends Albus off to the Guild library, then pulls a chair up beside Harry’s bed and wakes him. He hands him a glass of cool water and steadies his arm while he drinks it, then takes back the empty glass.

“I have given it more thought, and I think we can agree that the Horcrux you carried for so many years is likely responsible – in part or in whole – for your condition now.”

If Harry is surprised at his candour, he says nothing. His eyes are on Severus, and Severus thinks there is relief in them, and perhaps resignation. Thinking something is true is one thing; hearing confirmation of the horrible thing you are thinking is quite another.

Severus takes care to compose his thoughts, his question, before voicing it.

“I have a question only you can answer: do you believe it to be a presence or an absence?”

He doesn’t say more – he knows there is no need to elaborate. Does Harry fear he still carries a part of Voldemort’s soul within him, or does he believe that the exorcism of that soul fragment has left him somehow damaged?

“I – I don’t know. I think of it as something magnetic – something that attracts negative emotion and converts it into physical pain.”

Harry is surprisingly lucid. But then again, he’s had years to think about it, years to succinctly summarise his situation. And he’s had the companionship of Hermione Granger, who surely voiced this same question many, many years ago.

Severus considers for a moment, turning Harry’s words over in his mind. “Something magnetic,” he repeats. He studies Harry, who returns his gaze with the air of a condemned man too exhausted to argue his fate.

“Do you feel as if the Horcrux occupied a specific space in your head?” He reaches out with a familiarity found only in dreams and touches the scar lightly with one thumb, pushing the errant black hair away and out of Potter’s eyes. At his age, Potter should keep his hair better trimmed – long or not. It is unseemly falling in his eyes like this.

Potter does not flinch. He blinks slowly and doesn’t push Severus’ hand away.

“No.” He shakes his head slowly and Severus’ hand falls away. “It should be my scar – right? But the pain is everywhere else – my entire head, behind my eyes, my neck. But these potions – whatever you’ve given me – they’re working better than anything has in a long time.” He looks hopefully at Snape, opens his mouth, then closes it, looks down at his hands.

“Go on – ask.” Snape feels as if he’s in the classroom again and a fearful student needs to use the loo but is afraid to ask the mean Potions professor for permission to leave. “I don’t bite.”

Or perhaps, in this case, he is simply afraid to hope.

Harry looks up, the tired grin on his face doing much to transform his worn, neglected appearance. “No, you don’t, do you?” There is a message there behind those words, behind those eyes, and Severus wishes he could interpret it.

Harry shifts on the bed, settles into a more comfortable position. “Could I have a list of what you gave me?” he asks after a pregnant pause. “Hermione can help me with the brewing. And George. If it’s not something too specialised or complicated – but it couldn’t have taken too long – I’ve only been here a day.”

Severus doesn’t tell him that he and Albus have been working on the targeted-area pain potion for two months, with Albus doing the bulk of the brewing and much of the research.

While Severus has given Harry a dose of the test potion, one not yet perfected but obviously effective, the others were standard potions he had on hand. Brewed with better-than-standard ingredients, by a better-than-capable hand, but nothing customised to Harry’s specific needs or symptoms. As they are obviously helping him to a degree he’s not accustomed to, Severus naturally believes they can be improved even more. He’s not quite ready to turn this over to Harry’s friends. Not just yet.

“A day is not at all long enough to understand why this regimen appears to have helped, nor to understand whether it will have a long-term effect. Allow us to continue working with you until we have demonstrated success for more than a day - then we will discuss a go-forward plan with which your friends can certainly help.”

Harry nods in resignation. Severus feels an odd sense of almost-guilt at the obvious change in his mood. And he wonders, with an odd pang, what Harry’s life would have been like these past twenty-five years had Harry come to him when the symptoms began to manifest.

But Harry – for good or ill – had not.

“I guess I’m getting ahead of myself,” Harry says, smiling tiredly. “I – well, I haven’t felt this good in a long time.”

“I have more questions,” Severus responds, adding, “since you’re feeling better.”

And at Harry’s nod, he proceeds to ask him about the specific potions he was taking the past weeks, and where he purchased them, and how much he paid, and whether he took them regularly, as a preventative, or only when needed, as a palliative. He asks very specific and sensitive things – whether the cost of the potions affected his use of them, whether a treatment was ever offered that he rejected due to the cost. He inquires whether anyone prescribing or recommending a treatment knew about the Horcrux, or suspected, and if they didn’t, what, exactly, they were treating him for. He then takes the questioning down another path – about addiction and mental illness. Is it at all possible that a kernel of worry is at the root of this? That Harry, only eighteen, almost alone in the knowledge that the Dark Lord had possessed his mind and body for his entire life, could not – cannot – shed himself of the idea that he is not truly gone?

Harry is shaking his head. Angry. Frustrated. Severus knows exactly what he’s thinking.

_The pain is real._

( _Of course this is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?_ )

“Look, Snape – I’ve been through this already. As soon as they eliminate a curse they can’t identify, or a medical condition, everyone thinks the pain is all in my head. And it’s not. I’m not creating this for myself – the Horcrux is doing it. And I don’t know why, and Hermione doesn’t know why – and she’s read everything there is to read about them. Everything. And it’s been like this for twenty-five years, and it’s probably going to be like this forever. It’s already ruined half my life and I was only hoping – hoping – ” He chokes, then swallows. “Hoping for some relief is all,” he says. “I stopped hoping for a miracle a long time ago.”

And it is this finality, this simple statement that drives home to Severus that Harry Potter is a man in his forties, grown and world-weary. 

“I do not wish to embark down the wrong path and waste time chasing a dead-end solution.” Severus keeps his voice neutral. “I am not a healer – I am a Potions master, and something of an expert on Dark Magic, though I admit my particular experience with Horcruxes and their effects, short-term or long-term, is nonexistent. I am sure Albus had books, references –”

“Which Hermione already has. And has had since just after he died.”

They lock eyes for a long moment. Severus’ mouth quirks up into what passes, for him, as a smile.

“Ah.”

He doesn’t ask how books of that ilk happened to have made their way into Granger’s possession. And Harry doesn’t offer an explanation, either.

“Albus told me that the traits you shared with the Dark Lord were attributed to the Horcrux – in particular, your ability to speak Parseltongue. Did you lose that ability after his death?”

Harry nods. He’s getting tired – Severus has had a lot of questions. He squints through the beginnings of a headache. “Hermione uses that all the time as proof the Horcrux is gone.”

“You should need no other proof than the Dark Lord’s corpse,” Severus says. 

Harry stares at Severus again, and Severus cannot tell what he is looking for, or what he sees. He gives another rueful smile, then closes his eyes. 

Severus steps away from the bed and turns to leave when Harry speaks again. His voice holds what Severus hears as a quiet threat.

“Please tell me you’re not interested in Albus. That there’s nothing going on between you.”

He pauses in the doorway and turns to face Harry. It’s a fair question, given the circumstances. He loved Lily, and lusted – albeit briefly – after her son. Why not the grandson too? The one who favoured his father so very much?

“I have never – and will never – look at Albus Severus as anything but my apprentice,” he says. “And if it is any comfort to you, he is currently pining over a seventh-year Ravenclaw girl who regularly owls him and has the messiest penmanship I have ever seen.”

Harry doesn’t open his eyes but he smiles.

“Yeah – it is. Thank you.”

He says nothing else and Severus leaves him, returning to the laboratory to write down the salient points from their conversation, and to document his own observations and hypotheses. He does not allow himself to dwell on Harry’s last question, or what comfort Harry took from his answer. 

But he does allow his thoughts to gather around an image he has just recalled – the image of the Dark Lord’s corpse lying still and grey and whole in the center of the Great Hall of Hogwarts.

He has returned to the memories Harry gifted him from time to time over the years, always in times of melancholy or doubt. It isn’t only the image of the Dark Lord’s lifeless body that he revisits, but the duel itself, and what Harry _says_ to him. He likes Hermione Granger’s memory best for that, because he can watch Harry’s face, the fire, the intent, the deep-down core belief that Severus is _good_ , that he stayed true all those years. And he revels in the fear in Voldemort’s, and the moment when he realises that he has well and truly lost.

_Severus Snape wasn’t yours. Snape was Dumbledore’s, Dumbledore’s from the moment you started hunting down my mother. And you never realised it, because of the thing you can’t understand. You never saw Snape cast a Patronus, did you, Riddle?… Snape’s Patronus was a doe, the same as my mother’s, because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from the time they were children._

He can recite Harry’s words, and wonders if his Patronus is still a doe. He has not had cause to cast it since that night in the Forest of Dean.

When Al returns from the library, they discuss Harry’s case and where they are with the research, and what steps are best taken next. Severus Apparates home most evenings to his home in Calais, leaving the London laboratory to Albus’ attention, but he believes Harry will do better in his own home, with Al there and the laboratory closed up.

They take Harry home that evening and are surprised to find Hermione and Ron sitting together on the front porch, tossing a ball to the crup. They stand quickly and Hermione moves forward to embrace Harry.

“You look great, Harry.” 

“Yeah, mate. You look a hell of a lot better than usual.” Ron throws an arm over Harry’s shoulder and Severus is suddenly – acutely – aware that he hasn’t had a best friend of his own in more than forty years. 

“I feel better, too,” Harry said, glancing at Severus. “Thanks to Al and Snape. Turns out Al’s been working with him these past months and not that bloke in Ireland. I’d be angry, but as this is the best I’ve felt in months…”

Hermione glances at Snape and Severus notes the look of doubt, of distrust, in her eyes. She quickly gets control of the homecoming, sending Al and Harry and Ron inside to get Harry settled, while she has a few words with Severus.

“He doesn’t like talking about the Horcrux,” she says, by way of introduction. She’s all business, but he shouldn’t expect anything less, and appreciates her directness. “And Albus doesn’t know about it, unless you’ve told him. None of the children know. I’ve got Dumbledore’s books – don’t ask how – and I’m keeping them safe. But there’s nothing in them that’s of any use at all to help Harry. I doubt there’s a cure, and he can’t afford expensive treatments, and won’t take help from the family.” She looks like she wants to say something else, but holds her mouth in a tight line. Exasperated. 

“I understand. The cost of the potions will be greatly offset if Albus brews them, of course, especially if Longbottom continues to help with ingredients. I think Mr. Potter will be able to afford the treatment, though I cannot guarantee that this regimen will continue to be effective. We need time, and we need to keep close tabs on him.”

She leans back against the porch rail, seemingly relieved at what he tells her, and pushes her hair back behind her ears. He has little contact with the public these days, especially with former students, and he is always surprised at facing adult versions of the teenagers who plagued him. “How did he react? When he found out that Al was working with you?”

Severus sits on the top stair. “He was quite ill. He seemed resigned – not unduly upset, to tell you the truth. I expected a much more negative reaction, given the secrecy on which Albus insisted.”

Hermione sighs and sits beside him, leaning against the post on the opposite side of the stairway. “I begged him to go to you for help – the first time it got so bad the pain was unmanageable. But he refused and he told me he couldn’t – that he’d come to see you after you were released from St. Mungo’s and had humiliated himself. I told him he was being ridiculous – that you’d _want_ to help him after what he did for you. Not that you owed it to him – I don’t mean that. But he wouldn’t budge.”

“He didn’t humiliate himself,” Severus says, shaking his head and thinking of the pain Harry had suffered, perhaps needlessly, and that the humiliation of the culmination of their month’s contact that winter after the war had been his and his alone. “And rest assured that I would have helped Potter even had he not helped save my life in the Shrieking Shack.”

He is leaning against a rail himself, half facing her, and he sees the odd look she gives him at his statement. She follows it with a curious smile. 

“Well, that too, I suppose,” she says, vaguely. 

“What do you mean?” he asks, pointedly. He doesn’t like playing games.

She is looking at him shrewdly now, assessing him. Perhaps she thinks he is playing games as well. Her eyes, serious and intent, study his expression as her face takes on a pensive look.

“You don’t know. You really don’t know. I was sure you’d have figured it out – especially after Al… ” 

At this point, he’s not sure he _wants_ to know. He doesn’t like being studied like this – is far more accustomed to directing that look at others – and doesn’t recall being the subject of such scrutiny since his days as Dumbledore’s spy.

“If you have something to say, say it.”

He is a far more convivial person than he was when Hermione Granger was his student at Hogwarts, but his patience can be tried, and he dislikes indecision of any sort.

“Fine.” She glances at the door and it is clear she is about to reveal something that should be held close to the vest. “Harry paid your war reparations.”

The statement hangs there between them, and Severus feels as if Granger could flick her finger and knock him to the ground. With supreme effort and self-control, he is able to keep breathing, to control his heart rate, to keep his lips pressed together and to continue to gaze at her, unblinking.

She unnerves him with a smile.

“Surprise?”

He stands quickly and strides forward into the garden, robes snapping behind him. He has a thousand questions, a hundred protests, a dozen regrets. He is unaccountably angry that Harry would do this without his consent, that he would compromise his own life and the family’s he didn’t yet have, his happiness, his health. That all this being said and done, he would live for twenty-five years with a debilitating condition, when Severus would certainly have been able to help alleviate the symptoms himself and would have spared him the expense of the exhaustive regimen of treatments.

Why in Merlin’s oft-quoted name had Harry not _come_ to him?

“You really didn’t know.”

He has turned to face Granger again, emotions under control behind a sound Occlumency shield. He’s learned years ago that Occlumency is an effective tool to block attacks from inside one’s own head as well as from outside.

She looks astounded. 

“But – who did you _think_ paid them?”

“The Malfoys,” he says through gritted teeth. “Who else has that kind of money? It had to be the Malfoys, or one of only a few other Slytherin families of my acquaintance.”

“You didn’t _ask_ them? Thank them?”

He bristles. “I was informed by the Ministry that an anonymous party had paid all reparations levied against me, and that the transaction was made privately through Gringotts and even they did not know the identity of this party.” He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his aching head with thumb and forefinger. “While it may not seem, on the surface, a Slytherin act, it is. By my not knowing the identity of my benefactor, I have been unwittingly beholden to all the possibilities – all the _obvious_ possibilities – for years.” He sighs and goes back to sink onto the stairs again, presses his lips together, shakes his head in disbelief. “I would never have allowed it,” he whispers. “Not from Potter.”

Perhaps she interprets the meaning behind his words correctly, or perhaps she does not. He can’t tell and doesn’t care. 

“Who knows?” he asks after a silent moment.

“Myself, Ron. Ginny of course. And that’s all - Harry’s children don’t know. Only that Harry gave away the Black fortune to help rebuild after the war – to help people who’d lost everything.”

“I hadn’t lost everything,” he murmurs, because it is something to say, and he is, essentially, speechless.

“When you took on Albus, I was sure you knew,” Hermione confesses. 

“I was under the impression that Albus’ family believed him to be studying under Master Boyle in Ireland,” Severus counters. 

“He told Ginny,” says Hermione.

Severus looks at her sharply and she smiles. “Who told us, of course.”

“You believed I took on Albus because I owed a debt to Harry Potter?”

She holds her ground. “Why did you, then? You haven’t had an apprentice in a dozen years. And then, suddenly, you take one on – one who happens to be Harry’s son?”

“How do you - ?” Severus begins, then falters. “Never mind.” He rubs his eyes. “You may tell your family this.” He pauses and she doesn’t blink or flinch. “Applicants are allowed to specify a preference for a master. The Guild has no obligation to place a qualified applicant with the master of his or her choice. Many factors are at play. If you think it is a commonplace occurrence for an applicant to request me, you are mistaken. I was intrigued by Mr. Potter’s application and decided to interview him. He explained his motivation in becoming a Potions master and I agreed to take him on.”

“Because you wanted to help Harry.”

He stares at her, but does not answer.

The front door opens and Ron and Albus come outside, the crup at Albus’ heels.

“He’s lying down for a while, sir,” Albus says to Severus. “Would you like me to stay with him or get back to the lab?”

Severus pulls himself to his feet. “Go back to the lab and prepare more base for the new potion, and prep the ingredients for the muscle relaxant and blood pressure philtre. I’ll finish up here and be sure your father is settled, then check in on your progress.”

Albus Apparates back and Hermione goes inside to say goodbye to Harry.

Five minutes later, Hermione and Ron are gone and Severus sits alone on the porch stairs, considering all that he has learned. He is stunned and overwhelmed, feeling foolish for never having considered the possibility. He sees now that Harry was able to direct the funds to the projects of his choice, projects that he knew would have had Snape’s approval, that would have mattered to him. He is angry at Harry, at his generosity, his selflessness, his foolish naiveté. He realises that Harry came to see him at Spinner’s End only after the deed was done, when Severus had already gained his freedom and had attributed that freedom to Lucius Malfoy. At the time, Harry could not have known what his gift would cost him, how much he would suffer because he no longer had adequate resources to treat the condition that was only beginning to manifest itself.

He’s known what to do from the beginning, though he offered the solution mainly in jest. _I need to get inside his head,_ he’d muttered to Albus as they worked on the target-area pain potion. _Even if we perfect the potion, it won’t prevent the pain or cure it – only alleviate it once the symptoms set in. We need to know what underlying condition – or circumstances – actually cause it._

But getting inside Harry’s head was certainly not possible under the circumstances at the time. 

Fortunately - or not – that reason no longer exists. There’s nothing for it. He knows what he has to do to move this along, to determine what, exactly, might be ailing Harry Potter. He needs to cut through the clutter of a quarter century of dead ends, experimental treatments, palliative care.

What he needs to do – what he _must_ do – is look inside Harry’s mind. He needs to experience the pain as Harry experiences it, for good or ill. To look for its source as no one – certainly – has yet attempted.

Yet for this, Harry needs to trust him. 

Sitting there, on Harry’s front porch, in front of Harry’s modest home, Harry’s crup sitting beside him, attentive but not fawning, he has a pang of regret, fleeting but present, that his own life choices have led him to such a successful yet quiet life. He reminds himself, when these moments arise, that the excitement and danger of the Voldemort years was enough to last a lifetime and more and that a quiet life is what he earned, what he _deserves_. 

And that, too, can be interpreted in more ways than one.

The crup sighs, relaxing into sleep as creatures of its size and ilk do, and Severus regards it for a moment, wondering how long it’s been a fixture here at the Potter home, and whether it offers Harry some measure of comfort, of company, now that the house is much quieter than he’d like. The idea that Harry Potter, surrounded by people who obviously love him, would need this type of comfort and reassurance is oddly disturbing.

There is no one to witness the act as he carefully lays his hand on the wiry head of the sleeping crup, as he draws it down over its lean body. The animal stretches its limbs and opens a sleepy eye to look at Severus, closing it again slowly, trust implicit.

If only it would be so easy with Potter, Severus thinks.

He checks on Harry a few minutes later, finds him stretched out on his bed diagonally, eyes closed.

“Everyone gone?” he asks, not opening his eyes. 

“Yes – Albus has gone back to the lab to continue work on the potions.”

He looks around the room. There is no chair, so he settles on the edge of the bed near Harry’s feet. Harry opens his eyes and regards him, more tense than he was a few moments before. He is not wearing his glasses – they are folded on the bed stand – and he looks younger, more vulnerable, without them.

“What?”

“We can continue this – and I know the current trajectory will be successful at relieving you of much of your pain and giving you a better, more productive life. Albus has both talent and determination – he can continue down this road and become a skilled Potions master, under my own tutelage, and after me, under a Medicinal specialist.” 

“But…?” 

Severus nods. 

“But he could also get back on his broom and train with the Wasps and play in their next season. He could leave your treatment to me and return to Potions later, if he’s still inspired by it. There is no time limit to this field. He can play Quidditch for a dozen years or more and devote the remainder of his life to a more academic discipline.”

Harry has rolled to his back, and he pulls himself up to rest on two pillows pushed back against the headboard of the bed. He holds Severus’ gaze for longer than is comfortable.

“Alright. Go on,” he says at last, finding, Severus assumes, what he was looking for in Severus’ answering stare.

“I would like to perform Legilimency on you,” Severus says, keeping his voice level, professional. “Has anyone tried …?”

Harry has gone pale, but he doesn’t respond. He just keeps staring at Severus, waiting.

“Has that already been tried?” he finishes. “To search for the source of the problem from within? For the presence of residual Dark Magic, perhaps?”

Harry shakes his head. His mouth is now a tight line. He is afraid, or suspicious, or in remembered pain. 

“They wanted to – at St. Mungo’s,” he answers. “Years ago. I wouldn’t allow it.”

“You didn’t trust them.” 

“Yeah. Still don’t.” He attempts a smile. “I had enough time with someone else in my head and after it – the Horcrux – was gone, I was even more afraid of anyone poking around in there.”

“Of what they might find.”

It is not a question, but a statement, a conclusion.

Harry turns his head to look out the window beside the bed. The light plays off his features, highlighting what years of worry have imprinted on him. “Yeah. You could say that.”

“And of what they might do with what they found.”

Harry nods, a quick and sharp bob of his head, and bites at his bottom lip. Severus has the sudden desire to smooth his thumb over it, and clenches his hand into a fist, tucking the thumb well inside.

“So – the question is obvious, is it not?”

And it is the same set of eyes he is looking into now – the eyes that peered at him from above that tumbler of scotch back in Manchester, at Spinner’s End, in the dingy book-lined sitting room with the old, comfortable chairs and sofa, the remnants of a working-class family life. 

Harry’s lips curve into the barest of smiles.

“Yes. I trust you.”

All those years ago, at Hogwarts, when Albus had ordered him to teach the child Occlumency, he had willfully neglected the one element that would have made the process easier and more successful – trust. The boy was destined to fail – though not alone by Severus’ neglect. While Severus could Occlude against the Dark Lord’s attacks, nearly no one else could, and certainly not a boy of fifteen or sixteen, one who carried a part of that Dark Lord within the very brain he was attempting to Occlude.

It is by mutual, unvoiced agreement that they begin now.

Severus moves forward until he is sitting beside Harry’s hips, his knee bumping against the bed stand. Harry has slipped into his rhythmic breathing, the method he uses to work through pain, and now stress. 

He doesn’t give Harry any instruction – the boy was never able to block his intrusions before and knows that eye contact is necessary. He is already looking into Severus’ eyes when Severus places one hand on each of his shoulders and softly says the incantation.

“Legilimens.”

And…nothing.

He is rejected so cleanly, so smoothly, skittering across the surface of Potter’s thoughts but seeing nothing save the reflected light in his eyes, that he has the feeling that he is sliding on ice. 

He recovers his virtual footing, moves his right hand from Harry’s shoulder and cups the side of his face. Alright, then. The man doesn’t trust him quite as much as he claims. 

He feels Harry shudder, just barely, beneath his fingers.

He holds Harry’s eyes and says the incantation again.

“Legilimens.”

The ice again, and he is sliding across it, turning in slow circles as he moves, catching the sun on every revolution. 

He drops his hands. Considers.

“What’s wrong?”

Harry has grasped his wrist and his fingers dig in, holding tight.

“You’re blocking me,” Severus states simply. He does not accuse – for their efforts to be successful, the trust must go both ways.

“No, I’m not,” Harry answers. “You know how horrible I am at Occlumency.”

Severus is not convinced. He has seldom encountered such a successful mental wall. He is unaccountably impressed.

“How horrible you _were_ ,” he corrects. “More than twenty-five years ago. You have improved dramatically.”

“But I’m not Occluding,” Harry insists. 

Severus considers, then replaces his hands, then moves the second to Harry’s head, now cupping his head loosely. He locks eyes with Harry and Harry willingly holds his gaze.

“Legilimens.”

To say his effort is more successful this time around is akin to saying one is closer to her destination when she’s run a dozen paces in a marathon. The ice may be thinner, but it’s still as smooth as glass and he hits it and slides along it, unable to change direction or speed.

He drops his hands because suddenly, he _knows_ and it is ridiculous and impossible and utterly brilliant and tragic all at the same time.

He should have had it an hour ago, because he himself practices what Harry has somehow internalised. Occlumency of the highest degree, Occlumency to prevent self-intrusions, to keep focus where it belongs, to keep his own mind from wandering down dead-end paths, or paths of self-destruction. In effect, he can Occlude against himself. He has honed his own skill purposefully, with careful intent, and can control it willfully. 

If he is right about this, Harry cannot. Harry, in fact, does not even recognise the monster he has inadvertently created.

He wouldn’t even consider the possibility that Harry Potter has somehow learned to Occlude against his own organic fears, the inner terror that must certainly have plagued him since learning that he, himself, was the last Horcrux, if he didn’t have ample proof that nothing was impossible when it came to the Boy Who Lived.

Harry is staring at him as he pulls himself from his thoughts. 

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Harry asks. He is furrowing his brow, and Severus considers how to continue.

“You are Occluding,” he says, deciding to be honest, but not jump too far ahead. “My attempts at Legilimency were unsuccessful. Your Occlumency shields are amongst the strongest I’ve encountered.”

“I’m not Occluding. I don’t know how – I never could, not since you tried to teach me.”

“You can and you are.” Severus can’t help but smile – at the look on Harry’s face, at the fact that he taught himself how to do something Severus failed at teaching him, at the fact that he is doing it without even realising. “And if I am not mistaken, this effort hasn’t been in vain. We may well have found both the root of your illness and its cure.”

“I – I don’t understand.” Harry shifts on the bed, sitting up straighter. He looks cautious. Unwilling to fully believe that there could possibly be a cure to the condition he’d endured more than half of his life. “How could I be doing that?” As he shifts again, his thigh presses against Severus’ hip, yet he doesn’t draw away. He exhibits a comfort with Severus’ presence in his room – indeed, in his life these past days – that Severus finds curious. This is the very man who, as an eighteen-year old, had sought him out to return his memories and stayed to seduce him. Who had subsequently disappeared from his life, married his childhood sweetheart, raised a family, and suffered a mysterious illness without ever trying to contact him. Who had spent his fortune on war reparations for a man who’d hated him, a man he’d hated in turn, and who’d kept that information to himself, even though that very man had the tools and knowledge to be able to help him, to make his life bearable again.

Severus stands and moves to the foot of the bed. Harry’s eyes track him as he walks, then settle on him as he leans forward.

“I can’t explain it, either,” Severus begins. “But from where I stand, it would appear that your illness is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Harry begins to protest and Severus raises a hand to stop him. “Please – allow me to finish. I am postulating – I have no way yet of proving my theory.” He waits for Harry to settle, then goes on. “After the Final Battle and Voldemort’s death, the Wizarding world was turned on its ear. Accusations flew – the remaining Death Eaters were hunted down. Reparations were set extraordinarily high and probations and prison sentences exceedingly long. Suspicions ran rampant. The Ministry set out to assure that there would not be another Voldemort. The thing you were hiding – the existence of the Horcruxes and, in particular, the one you yourself had carried within you – became even more important to hide. You’d told no one – no one other than your soon-to-be wife and the two who already knew. Dumbledore was gone. As far as you know, I was the only other person alive who knew about them other than your three best friends.”

“You don’t understand.”

Severus walks back to the side of the bed. “No – I don’t suppose I do. Not fully. But I understand being afraid – and you were afraid of what might be in you and what might come from outside if the Wizarding world found out. And Harry – listen to me. You were wise to distrust the Ministry at such a time. You were wise to keep quiet about the true nature of Voldemort’s longevity. But while you could prevent the world from knowing, _you_ still knew. And I can only imagine what the knowledge was like for you. I have only my own experience, in the year before Voldemort returned, as the Dark Mark began to reform, to imprint darker and darker on my skin. It made me sick to my stomach, watching it. The dread. The fear.”

He pauses to unbutton his cuff and knows Harry’s eyes are fixed on his forearm as it appears as he rolls back his sleeve. Severus turns his arm toward Harry. It is unmarred.

“In the years before he returned, the mark faded, but was never gone altogether. After the Final Battle, it faded again – but this time faded into nothingness. It is gone, Harry. As is the Horcrux.”

“I know that,” Harry says, eyes still fixed on the wiry forearm. “I _get_ it. But it doesn’t take away the fear. And it doesn’t explain what happened earlier – what you said about me Occluding.”

Severus notes Harry’s admission – that he _is_ afraid – and wonders what that fear would look like if Harry were not Occluding against the terror of another’s soul living within him.

“I think it is possible,” he says, sitting on the bed again and regarding Harry, “that you are using a form of Occlumency to shield yourself from the consuming fear that you are still carrying a bit of him inside you, or perhaps that the Horcrux did some irreparable damage to you when it was destroyed when the second Killing Curse hit you. You believe the pain is coming from that – and, admittedly, I thought the same when Albus confided his intents to me. And as I have no precedent to understand human Horcruxes, I also have no precedent to understand what happens to a person when they instinctively Occlude all the time. I can only guess, hypothesise, that your symptoms – all of them – are from the stress of years of Occlusion and not from the Horcrux at all.”

“But – ” Harry is staring at him, incredulous. “That’s impossible.” He laughs. “I told you I’m not Occluding.”

“You are Occluding.” Severus leans forward, in toward Harry, and Harry draws back. “And the pain can be covered – it can be reduced with potions – but it won’t go away until you stop Occluding and learn to accept that he is well and truly gone.”

Harry swallows but doesn’t break his gaze. His mouth opens, then closes again, as if he wants to say something, but can’t bring himself to do so. He leans his head back against the headboard and closes his eyes.

“I know the pain is worse sometimes – when my marriage was crumbling, when the kids were away, when Molly was diagnosed. I imagined that the Horcrux might be feeding on those things.” 

“It is entirely possible you have to work harder to keep Occluding at these times,” Severus says. “It is the proverbial chicken and egg, Harry.”

Harry opens his eyes and smiles.

“You’re very wise,” he says softly. “I should have come to you years ago.”

Severus’ features ease into a smile. “You did.”

This is the first mention of it, in the brief hours of their re-acquaintance. 

“I mean for help,” Harry says, but he smiles. He holds Severus’ eyes again and Severus thinks they’ve been doing a lot of this, looking at each other, studying the other’s face, trying to read the past twenty-five years in their eyes. 

“I can help you now,” Severus says, “though I’d like to think I could have spared you some suffering had you come to me when you began to suspect the Horcrux was not fully gone.”

He cannot read the look on Harry’s face and he wonders – fleetingly – if something or someone else influenced Harry’s decision not to return, or if it truly was in reaction to what, at the time, seemed a very ill-advised physical intimacy. 

“What do I need to do, then?” Harry asks. 

“You need to drop the Occlumency shields,” Severus says. “You need to go back to how it was before the fear took hold of you. You need to believe he’s truly gone, that he doesn’t exist anywhere but in your memories.”

“You’re asking for a lot,” Harry says. 

“The task demands it,” replies Severus. 

Harry slowly releases a deep breath.

“Where do I start, then?” 

“By telling Albus about the Horcruxes. And after him, your other children as well.”

Harry pales, but he says nothing, just looks away, out the window again, and bites his lip.

Severus doesn’t resist this time. He reaches over and traces those lips with his thumb, his touch light, then runs his fingers down over Harry’s jaw and neck, rests his hand on his shoulder, leans in, speaks softly.

“You say you trust me. Surely you trust Albus and James as well.”

Harry surprises him by sliding a hand behind his neck and pulling him forward, down into a kiss that is, at first, the barest touch of lips. He lets Harry lead, but cannot help but respond when Harry’s hand grips his neck more tightly, when his lips press more firmly against his own.

But he lets the kiss end without taking it farther and pulls back when it does, his eyes warm and serious.

“We have much to discuss – but you should rest, if you can. Albus will bring fresh potions this evening. It would be a good time to have that talk with him.”

And so it begins.

ooOOOoo

The cure takes time.

Harry goes about it slowly and Severus doesn’t push, lets it play out as it must. For a quarter of a century, Harry has allowed pain to mask emotion, trying not to feed a Horcrux that once thrived on sucking joy from his life. He has to unlearn old habits, has to allow fear and joy and pain and love and sorrow to coexist within him.

He tells Albus first, and Severus leaves them be, returns to his laboratory, busies himself with catching up on neglected projects. It is nearly midnight when Albus returns, and Severus is still there, at his desk, and Albus walks quietly up to him.

“Thank you,” he says, then goes off to his room, and Severus counts it a victory and goes to check on Harry.

It is easier after that to tell James and Lily, then to bring the children and Ginny together. Severus stays only as long as necessary to explain his theory, and to offer some advice for helping Harry unlearn what is so ingrained in him that he doesn’t think of it. To challenge him when he shields himself, to encourage him to share his thoughts, and feelings, and fears.

Severus feels foolish and a bit hypocritical saying these things, as he’s not a poster child for openness, for honesty.

Harry has much to learn, much to work on, and as he slowly begins to rebuild his life, Severus goes on with his own. A month of Fridays a lifetime ago, no matter how close it brought them, does not a new relationship make, nor does a single kiss shared in an intimate moment of self-realisation. When Harry attempts to get closer, to pursue this thing they have begun, Severus pulls back. He sees what Harry does not – that while Harry rebuilds, Severus can be his friend, his advisor, even his teacher, but he cannot be his lover as well. Harry may find that he is quite a different person than he imagined at the end of the cure, and need or want Severus less than he does now, with the enormity of the task before him.

He accepts Severus’ decision reluctantly and they continue to spend a great deal of time together, but it is work – hard work – until finally, one day, Severus is able to penetrate his mind.

It is not much, but it is something. A brief glimpse of Harry and Ginny standing up cheering in the Hogwarts Quidditch stands, of brooms flying by in a riot of scarlet and green, blurring like Christmas lights. Then Harry closes his mind again, but there’s a grin on his face as he sees the look on Severus’ and he steadies himself and exhales.

“Again.”

Albus stays with him for the rest of the initial year, then, after a good deal of soul searching and with Severus’ blessings, leaves to join the Wasps. By this time, Harry is no longer taking the specialised pain potion. He’s far healthier, eating well, and has already seen improvements at work – with a promotion and a pay raise under his belt already, and an application for field work under consideration as well. Severus meets Harry for dinner two or three times a month now, and they discuss Harry’s progress, the challenges he is still facing, the setbacks he suffers. 

They are friends. Good friends. Severus doesn’t recall a friendship such as this, not for many, many years. Not since Lily Evans, who died more than forty years ago. And that’s sad in and of itself – that she’s been gone so long, but also that he’s kept himself apart so long. Not trusting. Not sharing. Not seeking meaningful companionship outside of his academic and research pursuits.

But Harry has many friends and he is re-establishing contact with others he’s neglected through the years as his condition consumed him. From time to time, Severus finds himself at dinner with Harry and Neville Longbottom, or Harry and Minerva McGonagall, and he finds that these events are not at all as horrific as he might have imagined. 

When Molly Weasley passes away in early summer, it is Harry’s heart that hurts, not his head. 

Severus pays his respects at the Weasley home, and if his heart pangs at seeing Harry comforting Ginny, standing behind her with arms wrapped tightly around her middle, he bears it stoically. He is accustomed to living with disappointment, to a chivalric sort of love, and he tells himself that this is what he expected, what he made possible, in fact, when he pushed Harry away all those months ago.

Summer bleeds into fall. Harry is busy with work and Severus with a research project funded by the French Ministry of Magic, but still they meet for lunch or dinner. One Saturday, Harry invites Severus to dinner with the family at his home. Harry has not told him that he and his wife are back together, or are trying to rekindle the flame, but Severus expects it is so, and is not surprised to find Ginny Weasley in the kitchen at Harry’s home. It is midterm break, and Lily is home, and James as well. Only Albus is absent, on the road with the Wasps. It should be awkward but it is not. Severus finds that he genuinely likes Ginny Potter – she is smart, and sharp-witted, and obviously cares deeply for Harry. She dares to hug him goodbye as he leaves and he misses the look on Harry’s face as he is enveloped in her arms.

The weeks fly by and Christmas is upon then again. The _Prophet_ is now speculating on Harry and Ginny’s relationship, and features a photo of them in Diagon Alley with Lily on the front page the Sunday before Christmas. Harry has been nearly pain-free for several months and has begun some much-needed maintenance projects around his cottage. He has an offer on the table for a teaching job at Hogwarts. It will be a wonderful Christmas indeed for the Potters, and Severus knows he should count himself lucky to have a friend like Harry and to be so often included in his family circle.

He busies himself with work, ignoring the festivities around him, and is surprised to hear a knock on his door one evening just before Christmas. He’s at his home in Calais and isn’t expecting anyone, but he pulls back the curtain to see who’s come and discovers Harry Potter on his doorstep.

Harry has a green scarf wrapped around his neck and is carrying two bottles of scotch. Good scotch, it turns out, when he presses the bottles into Severus’ hands. “One for now and one for the new year,” he says.

He wanders into the cosy sitting room as Severus fetches glasses, stands in the middle of it with his hands tucked into his pockets, turning to regard the shelves full of books, the worn and comfortable furniture, the mysterious silver gadgets on the mantel. There’s a pair of reading glasses folded atop a book on the cocktail table, a box of facial tissues beside it. Stacks of papers, parchment and ink and quill, a pile of journals grace the table as well, all orderly. A pair of house slippers is tucked just beneath the sofa and a tartan throw is folded over the arm.

Severus returns with two glasses. He fills them and hands one to Harry, looking at him questioningly. 

“I don’t recall telling you the location of my home,” he says, “other than it is in Calais.”

“You didn’t tell me where Spinner’s End was, either,” Harry replies. “But I found you there, too.”

Severus arches an eyebrow and Harry grins. It is an affable look, relaxed and happy. 

“So what motivated you this time?” Severus asks. He sits in his favorite chair and sips his scotch, while Harry settles on the sofa and leans over to lift the reading glasses and note the title of the book Severus is reading. “You can’t claim to have memories to return, and I doubt you were just passing by.”

“Memories – no. But I do owe you a bottle of scotch. And I’m hoping it’s been long enough – that you’ll consider giving us a go.”

“Us?” Severus repeats. “There can’t be an _us_ if you’re back with your wife, Harry.”

“Ah. And if I’m _not_ back with Gin?”

“Why would you _not_ be back with your wife? You’ve all but removed the source of your emotional dysfunction. You obviously love each other. You’ve produced three children together, have shared more than half your lives. You’re good friends. Her family is crazy about you – and you about them.” He reaches the end of his rather extensive list of reasons Harry Potter should _not_ have just suggested that they explore the possibility of an _us_

“Ah.” Potter nods and sips his scotch. In the years that have passed since the first time Harry sat in his sitting room, sipping awkwardly at a tumbler of scotch, the boy has definitely learned how to drink it.

And left boyhood far, far behind.

“Everything you said is absolutely true. But we don’t work like that anymore, Severus. We tried again – I admit it – and…well, I _can’t_. Not anymore.” He laughs, an exasperated sort of laugh, and leans forward, reaching for the bottle on the table. He refills his tumbler, then holds the bottle and gives Severus a questioning look. Severus nods and holds his glass out, and Harry pours another measure.

“You don’t see it yet, do you?” Harry asks. He’s smiling again, and he looks so at home there on Severus’ sofa, drinking from his grandmother’s crystal, so unlike the boy of eighteen who sat in his home and fidgeted with his tumbler, that Severus allows himself a smile in return. “You – who see _everything_ \- you don’t see it.”

“Enlighten me,” Severus says. He swirls the liquid in his glass and leans back into his chair, crosses his legs and waits, eyes on Harry.

“Alright, then.” Harry leans forward. “You know, you never asked me why I showed up at Spinner’s End twenty-five years ago.”

“You wished to return my memories,” Severus states.

“I _wished_ to keep them forever,” Harry corrects. “I spent hours at Hogwarts in Dumbledore’s Pensieve, watching them. It was unhealthy, and obsessive, but I couldn’t wrap my head around it. My mum. You. What you did. For me – for Dumbledore. For her. Hermione _made_ me bring them back. And she was right to insist. She found your property in the Muggle records. But Merlin – Severus – once I was there, I couldn’t leave. It was just worse – I wanted to know even more about you. I know I was just a kid, but it didn’t seem to matter. And you – of all people in the world – you seemed to understand. To understand me. Where I was, I suppose. What I needed.”

Severus shifts. “I’m not sure you needed what I gave you,” he says, remembering all too well, after all these years, where their short acquaintance led them.

Harry’s smile is fond, almost endearing on his so-much-older face, as he looks at Severus. “Maybe it was,” he says. “It scared the hell out of me. Made me realise I had no idea what I was capable of. And don’t misunderstand me – I blamed myself. For forcing myself on you like that. I knew you loved my mum, see, and you had to see her when you were with me.” He holds up a hand as Severus makes a sound of protest. “True or no, I felt horribly guilty. And – well, that’s when things really got worse. I was already losing sleep over whether that damn Horcrux was really, truly gone. And I just wanted to forget what happened with you. I never forgot, though – just so you know.” 

He takes another drink of scotch and sighs. “So yeah, that’s when I really got a lot better at what you’re saying is a form of Occlumency.” He sighs again. “Blocking my own fears, my own negative thoughts, overly strong emotions.”

Severus has a sudden queasy feeling in his stomach as the implications of Harry’s words start to sink in. A vicious game of cat and mouse, chicken and egg, that spiraled out of control, consuming Harry’s life until he was trapped in a cycle of pain he couldn’t combat with any tools in his arsenal. 

“You paid my war reparations.”

Severus finds the words slipping out, words that have little to do with the current conversation, except that they do, somehow, and he needs an explanation for that, because how could Harry Potter _not_ resent that?

But Harry is smiling again. “Yeah. I did. And I’d do it again, even knowing what I do now. Or I’d like to think I would, anyway. And Hermione told me she told you – after I visited you back then I knew you didn’t know, thanks to the Malfoys and their special wing at Gringotts.”

“So – your wife ….”

“My ex-wife and I are good friends, and co-parents, but we don’t work as a couple anymore. We didn’t when we broke up, either, and yeah, we thought it was because of my illness, my _condition_ , but I just couldn’t get you out of my head, Severus.”

He’s lowers his voice and he’s looking at Severus through those spectacles that somehow magnify his eyes. They’re still vibrant and green, but they’re looking at him as they’ve never really looked at him before. Not these eyes, not Lily’s before him, certainly not Albus Severus’ since. 

“Thank you. You – you have given me a life I could never have expected to lead. Freedom to enjoy my academic pursuits. I can never hope to repay….”

“I don’t want money, Severus.” Harry is laughing and shaking his head. “Merlin knows I’ve learned to live without it, and I’m doing a lot better at the MLE now that there aren’t goblins pounding on the inside of my head all the time.” He places his almost-empty tumbler on the table and stands. He’s wearing Muggle clothing, but is more formally dressed than is his custom – pressed grey trousers, a collared button-down shirt open at the neck, a jacket which he has already removed and draped over the back of the chair. His hair is trimmed away from his face now, and he’s clean-shaven. The wedding ring, which has appeared on his hand several times these past months, is gone. 

Harry takes a single step toward him, then drops to his knees beside his chair. He shifts once there, adjusting his weight, and this concession to age and condition, absent in the last Harry Potter who knelt beside him, is oddly endearing. 

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” Harry says. “I don’t claim to have a lot of experience, but I can’t be any worse than last time.”

He leans forward and Severus is in full control of his faculties this time, though they’re pleasantly relaxed with the scotch. He doesn’t doubt Harry’s motivations, or his sanity, as he holds Severus’ face between calloused fingers and kisses his lips with eyes closed, leaning against him with the familiarity of a man who knows what is his, who knows where he belongs.

And if he crawls into the chair a moment later, straddling Severus’ lap, Severus cannot complain. It’s cold outside, after all, and the fire inside is low. 

“I may relapse,” Harry whispers as he settles his knees down beside Severus’ thighs on the wide chair and begins working on the buttons of his waistcoat. “I expect I’ll have to keep you close in case this cure doesn’t work.”

“Even I can recognise an atrocious line like that,” Severus says, settling his arms around Harry’s waist and letting them drift down to the still-too-thin arse. He tugs Harry even closer. “Rest assured you do not need an excuse to keep me close.”

Harry leans down to kiss him, lids closing over green eyes as his lips touch Severus’, and Severus finds he doesn’t miss those eyes as his body responds to Harry’s weight in his lap, his lips on his mouth, his hold on his heart. If this is his reward for a roundabout cure to a condition he helped cause, he can live with it if Harry can.

“You kiss like a gentleman,” Harry says a few minutes later as Severus, long unaccustomed to this kind of physical intimacy, just barely resists the urge to rut up against him.

“Been kissing many gentlemen, have you?” Severus responds.

“Talk about a line….”

And while the cast is the same one that played twenty-five years ago, the set nearly so with shelves and books and furnishings worn and comfortable and firelight behind them, there is nothing else at all the same about the love-making that follows. It starts with a promise and ends with a sigh, and in the morning, Harry is still there, in Severus’ arms, where he has always belonged.

 

_Fin_


End file.
